


Mourning A Monster

by FromAnonymousToZ



Series: Political Saga [9]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Acceptance, Anger, Angst, Bargaining, Canonical Character Death, Denial, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Maybe a little comfort but only in so much as acceptance is comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wirt shows up in pottsfeild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: Grief is a complicated process.Enoch mourns.
Relationships: The Beast/Enoch (Over the Garden Wall)
Series: Political Saga [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065539
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	1. Anger

The Harvest Lord’s wail of despair could have been heard in every corner of the Unknown if one had the right kind of ears to hear it.

It was an awful, wretched wail that rooted itself in your bones.

It quaked through the ground and turned the air into something toxic and hard to breathe. It made small plants wither and made great oaks groan. Small animals covered their ears, and wolves whimpered, snapping and snarling at nothing.

Horses reared up, throwing aside riders, and cats mewled like frightened kittens. Young men began to weep, and young women were struck by grief so deep they could not bring themselves to do anything more than sitting dejectedly where they were. Married couples clutched each other close even as loss hollowed out their hearts. Elderly residents of the Unknown hung their heads sadly and sighed as waves of pain rippled through them. 

Witches could not shoulder through their spells, so overcome with grief that was not their own, it soured their enchantments and clung to their magic. 

His sorrow filled all those who could hear it. His grief held in them for only a fragment of a moment. 

The Queen of the Clouds is dragged by the winds to the borders of Pottsfeild. They desire nothing more than to soothe such sadness with their cool embrace.

She scowls as the winds rip away from her hands to tousle the ribbons of the Harvest Lord’s maypole skin. 

He lets them toss his ribbons to and fro.

Perhaps the Harvest Lord does not notice her presence because he does not turn to address her. 

He howls, voice filled with broken pain. 

His ribbons skirt forward, treacherous and dangerous, giving body to his pain. 

He wraps his ribbons around a section of the fence between him and the border and yanks it, unearthing it from the ground and clenching it to splinters between his ribbons. He tosses the fragments of them to the wind, his pained howl buffeted up by the winds.

He storms forward, his ribbons ripping themselves into tatters and digging gouges in the soft earth. His mouth of sharp teeth flickers as fabric and flesh jostle across his form, choking rot and plenty makes all of the flora his vicinity bloom and wither in rapid succession.

He shrieks and turns his rage on the nearest tree of the winter wood, ribbons wrapping around its great boughs, lacing over its bark and around its trunk. 

He yanks, and the great tree, one that has stood for well over 400 years, groans. It bends and flexes in his iron grip, creaking its protest. With a sickening snap, the old tree gives way and clatters to the ground, but that is not enough for the inconsolable Harvest Lord. 

He flings the great tree so far it disappears over the trees and comes crashing down somewhere in the winter wood.

The Queen of the Clouds sneers. 

She’s never seen Lord Autumn so overwrought.

How embarrassing.

“Calm yourself, Harvest Lord.” She calls to him, and he whirls, ribbons tearing at each other with a violent passion. 

He snarls at her. 

“Do not tell me to calm down as if I am some petulant child.” His voice is monstrous, distorted by his mouthpiece and his anger.

“You are the Lord of the Peaceful Dead. Act as you should.” She admonishes him, disdain framing her voice.

His ribbons fall deathly still, and the world goes abruptly silent, his song and his angered snarling snuffed out as easily and quickly as one snuffs out a candle. His mouth slowly closes, needle-like teeth interlocking as fabric stitched itself shut over it. 

At last, he is still and quiet, his emotion and true face veiled to her, though the ground around him continued to wither. 

“Very good.” She says, her voice clipped. “Now, we must begin to call a meeting so that a decision can be made about what we shall do about his forests. I imagine you’ll have the greatest say in how it will be divided up considering yours is the only realm his entwines with, directly that is” 

His ribbons shift, and she falls silent, waiting. 

Silence spans like eternity between them. 

“The Beast has died,” His voice is deep and fathomless, anger simmering below its surface. “My ally, my confidante,” He grasps for words. “My friend, my  _ beloved _ has died,” His rage is sharp in his words, and the world begins to churn as reality warps around the Harvest Lord’s presence. 

Everything goes sharp, the edges too harsh lined all at once, and things begin to blur as they warp. 

Pottsfeild’s crooked lines of pumpkins ripple, roots shoot up from the ground, and writhe through the air like angered vines. The earth cracks, and the Harvest Lord’s presence billows up, choking and cloying and dangerous. 

He snarls, and the world ripples with his voice. 

“And all you care to think of,” His ribbons dart forward, tatters and shreds of what they once were. “Is what will happen to his forest.” 

He lunges forward, and she flutters back, his ribbons and roots reaching, tearing at her wings and yanking her dress. 

“Vile Winged Mistress.” He snarls.

His once inviting façade turned hostile in an instant, soured by grief and sorrow.

“I ought to tear your wings off for your insolence!” 

“How dare you!” She cries, and he laughs, humorless and angry. 

“How dare I? How dare you! Your very presence is an insult to his memory!”

His ribbons and roots attack with renewed vengeance.

She dissipates into cloud, slipping between his appendages that seek to rend and tear, choosing wisely to hide herself far overhead.

He throws back his head and howls, his sorrow poisoning the world around him. 

She watches horrified as parts of her own domain begin to quake and wilt, clouds turning angry shades of gray, sending soothing rains to Pottsfeild’s borders. 

The fabric of the Unknown twists and warps as for the first time in an age, the Harvest Lord gathers himself.

This world and so many others bend to suit him, and the Queen of the Clouds flares her wings. 

She had not realized how widely spread and deeply rooted the Harvest Lord was. 

She watches as he rips up his carefully curated crops of pumpkins and corn in his anger, tearing sections of the fence up and flinging them to the winds, which tore around the maypole skin tossing the debris back and forth. 

The earth trembles and splits and howls at the Harvest Lord’s grief.

The maypole is less fabric than flesh now as writhing angered parts of the Harvest Lord overfill and warp it. He quivers as the world churns, ripped apart by ribbons. 

Crops that so neatly line Pottsfeild’s border begin to wither, shriveling under a dangerous amount of plenty. 

The Queen of the Clouds watched tensely as autumn twined itself through winter, his anger reflected throughout any place he was rooted. 

The Queen of the Clouds presses her lips into a fine line and decides it would be wise to seek refuge in a place untouched by death. 

She retreats, the heartbroken howl of the tormented Autumn Warden ringing in her ears.


	2. Denial

Miss Clara putters about the kitchen of the tiny house. 

It's a quiet house, one without mice or creaking floorboards. The hearth burns bright and friendly, and her windows are always open to allow the swapping of stories with anyone who happens to be wondering by. She lives alone. She always has, in life and in death.

Gently she picks up the mince pie cooling on the windowsill, covering it carefully with a cloth; she sets it in her basket. Beside it goes a bottle of milk and a few fresh apples, which she pauses to inspect and wipe on her apron. 

She goes over the contents of the basket once more, ensuring she has everything, and then tosses a square of fabric over the mouth of the basket and tucks it into the crook of her arm. 

As she leaves the house, pushing the door shut with her hip, she grabs her straw hat and places her upon her head, and starts off down the road, her steps unhurried. 

Mr. Aspen and Mr. Leftlin wave to her as she passes them in the street. Miss Eliza sighs knowingly as she gathers young turkeys in her apron but nods Miss Clara onward. Flagsman Brown walks with her a ways before peeling off to join his wife in the fields; he tips his at her and wishes her luck. 

She continues walking until the Pottsfeilders on the path grow fewer and further between, the dirt road no longer lined by homes and barns, instead framed between waving fields of grain, interspersed with cornfields looming up. 

She walks onward, past pumpkin patches, and cornstalks.

Mr. Fisher stops her in the middle of the dirt road. 

He was waiting for her.

“Clara,” He says, voice soft and gentle, “You’re not going to go and try to talk him down again?”

“Someone must.” She says, voice sharp. 

They’ve had this conversation every day for the past year. 

“He’s not going to leave his post.”

“So you say.” She says, clutching her basket close, her voice sharp. 

“Clara,” He sighs. “His poor heart aches too much. He’s not ready to be consoled.” 

“He might not be ready yet, but when he is ready, someone must be there to console him.” 

“It will not be today.” 

“I will not know unless I try.” 

“Clara, it's not healthy for you to go and spend your days trying to coax him from the borders. Come on, I’ll walk you home.” He moves to wrap an arm around her shoulders to gently steer her back towards town.

She strikes him. 

His head snaps awkwardly to the side, and his jaw clacks. He staggers back, less hurt than surprised.

And perhaps that is a testament to how bad it has gotten, that anyone in Pottsfeild ever needed to quarrel. 

“How dare you.” She hisses. “If you lost your wife, your brother would come and sit with you every day. If your brother lost his husband, you would go and sit with him every day. You have in life, and you would again in death.”

“Clara, it is not your duty to sit with him,” He pleads, jaw popping back into place. 

“It may not be, but he has no brothers or sisters who will come to watch over him and share in his grief. He has no parents to hold him close and no companions to comfort him. We are all he has.” 

He shakes his head sadly at her, but he at last relents. 

“Very well, I’ll come to fetch you at sunset.” He murmurs, voice soft, and turns to walk up the path back towards town. 

She watches him leave, hay braids fluttering in the breeze. 

She turns and continues until she reaches the border. 

The fence that separates Pottsfeild from the Winter Wood has never been more than a mere formality, it has never kept anything that wanted to get in out, and nothing inside wished to leave. 

And yet, for as long as there had been a Pottsfeild and a Winter Wood, there had been a fence that ran between the two. 

Sitting on one of the fence posts is a cat.

Its eyes are hollow and glassy, but earnestly watch the Winter Wood, flicking about like a darting butterfly at the slightest indication of movement from the forest. Its fur is matted and patchy as if the cat has not groomed itself in months. Its limbs are delicate and fragile, and its stomach emancipated as it stares into the wood. 

Its tail flicks weakly as she approaches, but it does not turn its gaze from the forest. 

“Today.” Enoch’s voice is withered and broken, like a mighty willow brought low by years of drought. “Today will be the day he returns.”

Clara doesn't correct him. 

“You should eat, dear,” She tells him as she props her basket up on the fence and fetches the mince pie from the bottom of the basket. 

She sets it next to the cat, who doesn't even spare it even a glance. 

“Today,” Enoch repeats like a mantra, unhearing of her suggestion. 

She fishes the milk out of the basket and pours him a saucer. 

Then she sets the basket down by her feet and hops up onto the fence so she can swing her legs over the side to sit.

She settles herself for a day of waiting, folding her hands on her apron and gazing out into the empty woods. 

“Today, he will return,” Enoch says, sitting next to Clara on the fence, and the pie remains uneaten, the milk undrunk, and the forest undisturbed, just as it has been for the last 83 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The answer is really quickly.


	3. Depression

The maypole stood in the darkness of the barn.

None of the lanterns had been lit. The only light that illuminated the maypole's form was the soft starlight that filtered in through the slats of the barn and glowing from within.

Rot claimed the wood of the barn, weeds and ill-mannered roots pushing up through once-even soil and disrupting the floor, untended, crawling high on the walls and creating a canopy of scraggly plants. Some of the barn's timbers have rotted away and have come crashing down, lying disregarded where they fell, large chunks of the roof having caved in as a result. A stiff gust of wind makes the barn groan and rips loose the shingling, the whole thing swaying unsteadily against the elements, certainly worse for wear than it had been a few hundred years ago.

The barn sags, creaking and groaning with protest as it is claimed by nature. 

The maypole stands in the darkness, fabric eyes unseeing, ribbons moth-eaten, and ragged. 

A single figure sits at the foot of the maypole, head tilted downward. Her long dress spills over her legs and fills the floor, a pool of serene night, smoothing over roots and weeds, hiding the worst of it in darkness. Her fingers slowly comb through the uncared for ribbons, picking briars out of them and shaking dirt from them, showing them more kindness than they have seen in decades. 

She slowly braids them, hands steady, carefully comforting. 

Her long hair drifts up around her, twisting through holes in the roof to fill the sky and paint the sky in night. 

She opens her eye, and soft moonlight bathes the barn, stars twinkling in her hair. 

The silver light only serves to highlight the disrepair the barn has fallen into. It dances along the edges of his ruin and illuminates his grief in sterling. Not so long ago, it would have cast light upon the resplendence of his lands and his people, graced contentment only to have its own light reflected, but it only casts a luminous reminder of his grief now.

She has come to comfort him, to share in his anguish.

She is the only one among the wardens who could hope to know how the Harvest Lord felt. It had not been so long ago that her own lover had been taken from her.

Perhaps they sent her, knowing that she could be some comfort to him. Perhaps they hoped that her presence might make his despair abate so that they might all return to some semblance of normalcy. Maybe she came of her own volition, the wounds of her own broken heart still raw and aching, sympathy burning in her. 

He doesn’t care. 

He neither protests nor encourages her presence, staring distantly, barely moving, only ever occasionally flexing his ribbons. 

She is gentle, her presence unabrasive and calm. 

His ever-present contentment is thin and hardly detectable, buried under grief so thick it taints the air and makes it sour to breathe. Her own sorrow mingles with his, softer against the harsh edges of his. 

He might have wept had he worn another skin, but as it was, he simply stares, uncomprehending, uninterested in the darkness. 

In her lap, his catskin, unanimated, empty. 

Its furs are better cared for than they have been in decades under her stroking hands, which smooth over and untangle its pelt. 

“I miss him.” It's the first time Lady Midnight has heard him speak. His voice is hollow and lackluster. She combs her fingers through his ribbons gently. He does not even bother to speak from the maypole, forgoing a mouthpiece, words welling up from the earth and seeping from the walls of the barn.

“I know.” She replies softly. “I miss my wife.” 

He inclines his head. He is in no place to offer sympathy, too ensnared by his own misery to be able to bear the weight of hers. 

She has had years to grieve, and she understands. She does not expect of him anything more than his sorrow will allow. In time he will be able to return the favor when she is most reminded of her beloved, and she will be a faithful presence at his side when his melancholy threatens to overwhelm him. 

But that will be a time many decades away when the sting of a broken heart has been softened by the distant mercy of time.

Eventually, the sands of time will weather the sharp edge of the blade wedged in his heart into something dull. It will remain buried in his soul, a reminder, but one that does not tear or rend. It will be a weight, a reminder of a loss, the hollowness it carved will remain, but it will be an old wound, healed over, hurting in a phantom way, protesting when it is pulled the wrong way, but most days merely a reminder of an old pain. 

One day, the parts of him torn to shreds and gouged out with the guttering of a flame will be repaired, held together by memories and composure. They will still hurt, they will still ache, but it will be a different sort of pain. The pain that you hold close to your chest, low, sometimes low enough that you can forget, flaring up with memory and subsiding with time. 

For now, his sorrow is sharp and ragged and monstrous. 

She understands. 

For now, he must be hollow, carved out, empty and pained, so that one day he will be able to be whole again.

She understands, and so she grieves his loss with him, just as she had mourned the loss of her own beloved.

They lapse back into silence, mourning their lost loves. 

The Harvest Lord stirs, maypole shifting, his head tilts back, fabric creased and wrinkled. 

He stares up through the ceiling to where Lady Midnight’s hair spills into the sky. 

If he counts the stars, perhaps there will finally be something more numerable than his regrets.


	4. Bargaining

Enoch cradles the metal lantern in his ribbons. 

Only this morning had a solemn Mr. Weathers brought the lantern to his barn, claiming he had found the thing in some of the forest they were clearing to make room for new fields. 

He’s spent the morning cleaning it, knocking dirt from it, and wiping out the inside with his ribbons, generally fussing over it far more than he should.

It's still cold, still thrums with an underlying magic from years of containing a flame of winter. It's sickening to look down at it and see it unlit, it's glass face grey and dull, a thin, hairline fracture running up the length of its glass window. 

Remnants of what was once held in it spiral up into his being in fractals.

Enoch strokes it gently, the same way he would run his ribbons along the Beast’s shoulders had he been there.

Could the Beast feel the lantern itself? Enoch didn’t remember. 

Had he bothered to find out?

“If I had insisted you get rid of that meddlesome woodsman, would you still be here?” Enoch asks the lantern. “You would have fussed and huffed about my nagging, but you might still be here.” 

The lantern does not answer. 

How could it? 

It’s a lump of metal, bent to suit a purpose. 

To carry a flame that no longer burns.

Eventually, he tears his gaze from it, stamping down the expectation for a response.

Enoch begins to sing. 

It's a sweet song, one for lovers to share when dancing, a song punctuated by laughter, but at its core, it's nothing more than half a duet. It’s not meant to be without its partner, a verse, lonely in the air. 

He half expects to be joined, a voice twining with his own. Instead, it hangs, low and lonesome, a harmony half-sung, half met. 

For a moment, he pauses, the song still and silent upon his lips. 

He forages on, continuing to sing. 

He sings for the lantern, the same way the Beast has sung for him, the same way he has sung for the Beast. He sings as sweetly as he can, but the song only ends up fortified by sorrow. 

He sings for the lantern. 

He sings for the Beast.

He never lets go of the lantern, one ribbon bound tightly about its handle, cold, like clinging to ice, creeps up the length of his ribbon, settling itself like a balm against his soul.

Enoch wanders down into his cellar, selecting a bottle of lantern oil. 

Its foolishness born of hope, the exact thing the Beast would have scoffed at him for. 

He cannot help himself.

“Perhaps I should have offered a Pottsfeilder to do the work of lantern bearer for you. I don’t imagine they would have been very pleased being separated from Pottsfeild for so long, but they certainly wouldn’t have blown you out. Loyalty, at the very least, is strengthened by the grave.” 

Enoch pats the lantern gently.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have let me, I’m sure. You always were so particular.” He flips open the lantern’s reservoir and pours the oil into it. 

The sound of it splashing into the reservoir makes his being tight and his heart clench, anticipation tightening his ribbons and sending a crack through the glass jar.

He sets down the empty glass, still humming and stroking the lantern. His ribbons dance fondly along it.

“I should have taken your lantern.” He mutters as he putters around the barn, still addressing the lantern as he looks for a match. “Not just before this, but back when you and I first became close. I should have had you bring oil here, where your lantern could be protected.

“Ah, but you were so adamant that you continue on as you had, unchanged and unchanging.”

He finds a match. 

He considers striking it against the lantern but shakes the maypole’s head. How disrespectful. Inwardly he admonishes that the Beast would not care, but he cannot bring himself to do so. He strikes it against the wall. 

He coos sweetly as he flips open the door of the lantern. 

Only once before had he ever flipped open the lantern, and it had been to touch the Beast’s flame. That had been an exhilarating experience and one that brought up quite a few fond memories of the Beast writhing in his ribbons. 

The lack of flame in the lantern is like a knife twisting in his heart, reminding him of his own foolishness, and Enoch physically winces. 

He forces himself not to reminisce, to be in this barn at this time, leaning over an unlit lantern. 

The match burns close to his ribbon. He lights the lantern, and fire springs to life in its depths.

Warm golden light spills out of it, not the cold unflickering flame it once held. 

It is no longer the vessel of the forest, reduced to nothing more than a lantern. 

He stares at it dumbly. 

He was well aware that by igniting the lantern, he would not bring back the flame that had been. The flame that had burned uninterrupted for eternities. You could not revive a dead flame, only an ember. Ashes and dust did not give way to fire. That did not mean he had not hoped, a foolish, stupid hope, that when he ignited the lantern, it would burn just as cold and as bright as before. 

He clutches it, so cold and cruel against him, and he shudders. 

He’s weeping, tearless, awful weeping. 

The world twists, Pottsfeild distorting with the weight of his agony. 

He’s plenty and contentment and death all tangled up in wretchedness, sorrow, and grief sunk deep into him, clutching against him. He grieves. 

“Please, Beast,” He pleads, begging an uncaring flame. 

His being surges up, washing around the lantern, holding it close in an embrace unfelt.

He might be clutching too hard, ribbons deforming the metal. He’ll straighten it back out later when he is in a better place of mind. 

“What will it take, Beast?” He asks, and the flame does not answer.

The flame flickers.

“Why did you choose such a risk?” He demands, furious, and the flame does not answer.

The flame glows.

“If I had insisted,” He begs, and the flame simply flutters. “Would you still be here?”

The flame gleams.

“I would give anything, pumpkin, please,”

Its golden light is brilliant and entrancing, dancing high and flickering low, casting monstrous shadows throughout the barn.

He pleads his what-ifs and begging to the lantern, but it does not matter. 

The flame burns on, unheeding, unknowing. 

It burns blind to his grief, deaf to his pleas, and ignorant of the flame it has replaced.

It burns without bias, fuel, and sorrow all the same. 

It flickers, dancing behind a thin pane of glass.

It casts light without knowledge, the shadows left in its wake long and unknowing. 

So cruelly, it burns, glowing and golden and unknowing of the pain it causes. 

It answers no questions. 

It satisfies no begging. 

It burns.

Just as hot and bright as it was when he ignited it.

Autumn bows its head and thinks of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're nearly to the end of this story, and I have a few stories that I'll be editing and wrapping up before the new year, but for the most part this year's major stories will be finished up when I publish Acceptance next week. This year started off pretty balanced where I was writing for multiple fandoms and then quarantine happened and Oops All Beastnoch.


	5. Acceptance

Wirt wakes up. 

He can't see. 

Something dark and damp presses in around him. He can’t move, and yet there is no clawing sense of claustrophobia, only a dim, contented calm. 

Warmth seeps into him, binding him closely, pleasure and euphoria, dull but intoxicating mingle in his chest and fill his skull. It sinks into his bones and makes a nest there. It blooms in the broken columns of his soul, filling him with blossoms and flowers of plenty, vines, like deft ribbons coax his bones back together. Warmth pours like a fountain into his hungry soul, enticing life into it, filling it, and guarding it. 

Sorrow and fear peal away, stripped by the gentle comfort twisting its way through his fingers.

He likes it here. All is well. He wants for nothing. He fears nothing. Everything will be taken care of. 

Dimly, Wirt realizes that someone is humming. 

The song billows up around him, through the eaves in his body, and embraces him tightly. It refracts around him and shifts and whirls through him, dancing like light through stained glass. He thinks he knows the song, but that's not possible. He’s never heard it before, and yet, every dip and rise of the melody feels familiar. 

Like something he once knew intimately but has since forgotten.

Like an old friend calling his name, like a lullaby sung in his youth, like coming home after many years, it reminds him of walking through the Unknown- with its half-remembered paths and dream-like world-

It reminds him of camping trips with Greg and hot chocolate with Sara, of autumns with colorful leaves and warm fires. Like the smell of soup cooking or cookies in the oven-

Something cold and metal sheaves between his ribs.

He gasps for air only to find it doesn't come. His ribs quake and quiver, heaving, and he hears voices. They’re too loud, too sharp. He can't make sense of what they’re saying. It's just noise, too loud, too acuate, too disjointed. 

He can’t hear the  _ song _ . 

He wants to weep at suddenly being cut off from that lovely hymn but find no tears come.

He wants to yell, to demand the voices stop so that he can hear the song again.

His chest shudders. 

Something gentle and soothing reaches out to him, wrapping around his soul, softening the harsh voices and bringing the song back into focus. 

They’re clearing dirt off him. 

It’s too hot, too bright, too colorful, too much. He wants to squeeze his eyes closed and bar himself against it but finds he can't. 

Something reaches for him, delves deep into the ground, and laces itself around his hands. 

It scoops him gently out of the grave, fluttering and moving, cleaning the dirt off of him. 

He shrugs off the embrace of pumpkin roots for the embrace of corn-silk ribbons. 

The ribbons swim and pull him close, and all he can see is green, all he can hear is the song, all he can smell is autumn, all he can feel is soft ribbons against his bones. 

The ribbons draw back, and the world is no longer as bright, the colors have softened, the light has dimmed, it no longer seems so sharp and painful, now that he’s tethered to the song. He feels... happy, like a fluttering in his throat. Pleased and wanting for nothing. 

His bones are covered by hay and vegetables and autumn leaves. 

The world comes swimming into focus. 

He finds himself staring up at a familiar maypole, its face pulled into a grin. 

His jaw clacks against his teeth. 

“Enoch?” He forces out around bone.

“There you are,” Enoch’s voice is warm and gentle, the song pauses for only a moment as he speaks, but Wirt does not panic because somewhere in his heart, he knows that the song will return. The song is sweet, tucked within his bones, it’s rapture. “I was wondering when you’d turn up, lad. I suppose your brother will follow shortly.” 

Enoch smiles at him, and Wirt finds himself at a loss for words, so caught up in the euphoria of such a being gazing at him, soothing him, singing for him.

How had he been so blind the last time he had been here?

Why on earth had he wanted to leave?

“I suppose you’re not much of a lad anymore. 83 or so on the day of your death?” He whistles gently, his voice teasing as if he’s sharing an inside joke with Wirt. “A mighty feat, especially for one who dwindled in our little corner of the world here.”

Wirt wants to say something, anything, to keep this wonderful being’s attention on him. 

His jaw clacks voicelessly.

Enoch continues to smile down at him, ribbons stroking gently over his pumpkin clothing. 

“It's alright, lad. Most of the dead don't find their voice for a few days. Since you’ve already managed to speak, I’m sure it will come back to you soon.” 

Wirt nods shakily, and another of the pumpkin folk walks forward and takes his hand gently. 

He’s hesitant, shying away from the stranger. He doesn't want to leave Enoch’s presence. 

He clings to a ribbon desperately. 

The Harvest Lord chuckles gently. 

“It's alright, lad, I won't go far. Besides,” Enoch’s voice is like a safety blanket, draped over Wirt’s shoulders. “You know Mr. Leftlin, if I’m not mistaken, you dug him up, lad.” 

“He did indeed,” The man gently holding Wirt’s hand says. “I’m mighty grateful to you, sir.” The man addresses Wirt. His voice, though gruff, is gentle. 

Wirt still clutches at the ribbons hesitantly, and Enoch chuckles, warm humor burbling and washing away any shame Wirt may have. 

“Here, lad,” And he tears off one of his ribbons and binds it around Wirt’s wrist in a sloppy bow. “I promise I won't go far, and if I do happen to stray further than you’re comfortable, you’ll have a piece of me.” 

Wirt reluctantly releases the maypole and allows the man, Mr. Leftlin, to lead him away. 

The festivities pass in a blur, fuzzy in his mind, Mr. Leftlin stays close by his side, only ever parting from Wirt to push up his pumpkin and clack jaws gently with his husband. 

Time and time again, Wirt finds his gaze drawn to Enoch, who seems to be the only thing in focus in the barn, the only thing without fuzzy edges blurring into everything else. Enoch is a startling clarity of a melody drifting through the chaos. 

After a few half-voiced attempts, he manages to vocalize this sentiment to Mr. Leftlin, who assures him it's always like that, that everything else comes into focus eventually. Wirt is doubtful, but Mr. Leftlin clearly has more experience being dead than Wirt.

In one of his repeated observations of the Harvest Lord, he notes something strange, something that being newly risen had distracted him from. 

Tied up high with droopy bows in the maypole’s ribbons is a familiar lantern. 

If Wirt had still been in possession of a beating heart, he’s sure it would have jerked at the sight of it. Instead, as fear begins to rear its head, contentment chokes it out and settles between Wirt’s bones. 

The Beast’s lantern. 

He hasn't seen it in decades and had barely spared a thought to it in years.

It's tressed up delicately in his ribbons, with utmost care and reverence. 

It makes him think of panic and fear, of coldness and hunger. Memories of Greg with edelwood clasped around him, of surfacing from an icy lake tear through his mind. A panicky sick feeling embeds itself in his bones.

His boney hands click as he clenches them, fretting the hay between them.

Wirt stares at the lantern. 

Contentment wells up from the song around him, pulling away his unease and comforting him.

It's dead, as dead as it was the last time he had seen it.

There's a thin hairline crack running up the width of its glass face.

Later that evening, when all of the other Pottsfeilders have gone home, and only Wirt and Enoch are left in the barn, he finds himself staring at the lantern again. 

“Do you miss him?” His voice is still shuddery and hollow and punctuated by the clacking of his jaw, but he’s getting there. 

“Oh, terribly,” Enoch says, voice uplifting and warm, despite the sorrow of what he says. “Sometimes I forget, I simply think this is the time between our meetings, that any day now he will turn up along the border, and then I remember, and it hurts nearly as much as the first time I heard the news, which is why I carry the lantern. To remind myself.” 

They lapse into silence. 

When Wirt speaks, his voice is timid. 

“Are you mad at me?”

Enoch sighs, low and full of sorrow.

“No, I’m sure whatever happened in the woods happened for a reason.” A stray ribbon comes up and caresses the lantern, lovingly, distractedly, like a bad habit Enoch can't shake. “I’m sure he must have seemed like quite a monster to you.” 

Enoch shakes his head, and all of the maypole ripples. 

“Perhaps he was, but we are not human. We do not see things the same way you do. I am sure you felt justified in whatever part you had in his death, and I do not blame you for it. You are only human, and we are something else entirely.”

Wirt swallows thickly. 

“H-how long has it been?” 

That causes the Harvest King to pause, and he taps idly at the place on the maypole where a chin might have been if he had been human. 

“Let's see, you dug up Mr. Leftlin 14 years before his husband came up, and Mr. Thistle came up 60 years before Madame West,” The Harvest Lord begins to murmur to himself, considering and comparing numbers. “Let's see, perhaps 189 winters now? I’m afraid I don't have much of a head for dates. If you truly want to know, Clara probably has it written somewhere.”

Wirt’s hands skitter between the hay, now cushioning his bones and picking at his new vegetable donnings. 

“And he’s gone? There’s no one doing,” He pauses, searching for words, anxiety soothed by Enoch’s ever lilting song of contentment. “What he did…?” 

The Harvest Lord tilts his head at Wirt curiously. 

“There's a new winter warden of sorts. I don't much care for them,” The ribbons swipe restlessly, and the Harvest Lord’s voice dips into something hollow and saddened. “Nor do they much care for me, but they do not quarrel when Pottsfeild must expand, and they do not ask for the lantern, so I suppose there are worse neighbors to have. I might be a touch unfair when they do blow around these parts, so perhaps the fault is mine.”

Slowly, the autumn lord’s attention swings back to him, refocusing. 

The maypole’s face twists. 

“Oh, you probably meant the edel trees,” Enoch shook himself. “I am not sure. I have not encountered new trees. I have stumbled across a few of his groves, though.”

The lapse into silence, the maypole’s ribbons curling and uncurling with discomfort. 

The maypole shakes itself. 

“I believe we have spoken enough about the unwalking. You must tell me of your life, Little Pilgrim,” The maypole’s face twists into a grin. “I have heard from a little bird you have become the Little Poet instead.” 

Wirt grins awkwardly, without flesh or blood, though his smile is hidden by the pumpkin covering his head.

“Yes, I published some of my poetry, and people seemed to like my poems-” 

“Don’t be humble lad, I’ve heard you composed quite a few songs as well,” The Maypole gently encourages. “I do hope you’ll be willing to share them.” 

“Er, I’m not much of a singer- and I haven't really gotten my voice back-” 

“Its alright, lad, I’m content to wait. We have all the time in the world.”

A comfortable silence fills the barn. 

Wirt breaths in deeply and the sweet smell of cider embraces him. He only dimly wonders how he can smell without a nose before the feeling is quashed by the delightful feeling of contentment running between his bones. 

He feels almost tired, pleased, and lazy but without the clawing weight of tiredness on his eyelids and the fatigue that usually clung to his body.

“Can I even sleep anymore?” He asks through his hollow, rattling voice. 

The maypole considers this. 

“I don't quite know yet. Some Pottsfeilders can, and some can't, and not all those who can do. Some like to keep the habit of it, and others prefer to use the nighttime as their leisure hours, and some simply can't get into the rhythm of it without their heartbeat lulling them to sleep. You’re welcome to try.”

And try Wirt does. 

He can't close his eyes; he doesn't have eyelids anymore, but there does seem to be a trick to not seeing anymore. He manages it a few times but is always so surprised at his success that he jars himself into seeing once more. 

It's strange trying to sleep without being able to close his eyes. He can't quite get to that edge of half-consciousness. 

Instead, he finds himself tracing the maypole with his eyes. 

Guilt wells up in him as he stares at the lantern and grapples with contentment.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs. 

The maypole tilts slightly. 

“Don't be, lad. I've had plenty of time to mourn; I’m not mad anymore, just saddened. He was monstrous, and perhaps a bit foolish for only keeping his soul alight in a single lantern. It was a predictable end.”

Silence falls uncomfortable between them. 

“Say, lad, what happened with your little sweetheart?” 

“Oh, Sara?” The maypole hums, and Wirt is suddenly struck by a thought. “I never told you about her-”

The maypole chuckles. 

“I've spent eons with mortals, doing the work of satisfying them, lad. I recognize a longing heart when I feel it.”

Wirt would have blushed had he still had the flesh and blood to do so. 

“We got married.” He sighs dreamily at last. Then he rushes to amend that. “Like not right away! I mean, we dated for a while, but we broke up to go to college, and when we came back, we decided to get back together, and then…” He trails off he’s rambling. 

The maypole laughs warmly.

“Little pilgrim, little poet, little lover, so many titles whatever shall we call you?” The Harvest Lord teases, ribbons rippling.

“She was still alive when I died. Do you know when she’ll come here?”

When Enoch speaks again, his voice has a touch of remorse. 

“I’m not sure she’s even one of mine, lad.” 

Wirt feels like he should be upset, but contentment wells up where sadness, confusion, or anger would typically bloom.

He stares hollowly up at the harvest god. 

“But she might be?” He asked at last.

The maypole’s smile tugged wide. 

“Of course! She could be in the dirt under our feet as we speak, or she could be a few years coming.” 

Eventually, Wirt speaks up.

“What if she’s not?”

“If she doesn't turn up in two centuries or so, and you’re missing her, I’ll find whoever claims her soul and make a bargain.” 

“You will?” Wirt asks, hope edging his voice. 

“Of course, lad, wouldn’t be the first time I reunited a pair of lovers.” As he says the word lovers, a single ribbon dances up to clutch at the lantern, wrapping up around it and pulling it closer against the maypole. 

The maypole follows his gaze and tilts its head down to see where the ribbon has wrapped around the lantern. 

“I’m sorry,” Wirt says again, and knows how dumb it is, to apologize even after he’s been explicitly forgiven, but there's a distress that settles in his bones whenever he looks at the lantern. 

“It's alright, lad.” Enoch murmurs, voice soothing and comforting. “Everyone loses someone in life. I just happen to be one of the unlucky few who will not reunite in death, but you needn't worry for me nor yourself. I’ll see to it that you and your Sara are reunited. Now rest, lad.”

And this time, Wirt can. 

Peace folds itself about him, contentment holding him close in a warm embrace.

He dreams of Sara, of lovers and lanterns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that wraps up my first multi-chapter beastnoch fic. Hope you all are having a pleasant day.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, wanna see how fast I can make myself sad?
> 
> My tumblr is [here](https://doyouknowhowtowaltz.tumblr.com/).


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